Is KDE dying? This question, or variants of it, have been asked with increasing frequency in the two weeks since Jonathan Riddell announced that, after the next release, Canonical would no longer pay him for his work on Kubuntu, the KDE version of Ubuntu.

I agree somewhat with the author but really? Just because Canonical is stopping their support of KDE, it does not mean that anything is going on with KDE. Canonical is not even a big supporter of KDE anyway.

IMHO this is just FUD or people freaking out for no reason. On the top of page two there is a quote saying pretty much the same thing:

QUOTE

...., "We have not in the past relied exclusively or even primarily on Canonical's involvement so, while we regret they aren't participating as much anymore, the impact is not expected to be significant."

Going by the author's view, you could also say the same thing about Gnome because Ubuntu uses Unity instead OOTB. I am sorry to say but Ubuntu is not the only distro out there nor does their changes affect other distros as a whole. I am not saying Ubuntu is not a great distro but the idea of open source would never allow one company to change everything. That is the beauty of FOSS software.

"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain." -George Orwell, 1984

Anyone who believes that KDE is dying would do well to look at history. A Google search for "is KDE dead" returns 38,100 results, most of them in the last five years, but a few over a decade old. By contrast, "is GNOME dead" returns only 6 results. Apparently, the KDE death-watch has a long tradition, even though there has never been much to see.

I agree. Definitely FUD on the part of the author. KDE has many sponsors.

The only reason KDE development would want to even imply a death watch is if they wish to imply a death watch because they were counting chickens before they were hatched?

KDE has always done well and gained a large following. And with their latest version, they have redeemed themselves after the development fiasco we all had to live through previously.

I think to be fair to the author, the article does not read that KDE is in last lap, it is more that talk of KDE's demise is much premature. Perhaps the headline writer left out a question mark?

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. ~C. S. Lewis

"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain." -George Orwell, 1984

The Kubuntu Community is pleased to announce plans for the 12.04 LTS release of Kubuntu. As approved by the Ubuntu Technical Board on January 9th, 12.04 will be a 5-year long-term support cycle for Kubuntu. Please see our Beta 1 announcement for some of the highlights.

Some recent confusion followed an announcement by Canonical that they would no longer be sponsoring a full-time developer for Kubuntu, or offer commercial support contracts for it.

Kubuntu has always been and always will be a community made project. The Kubuntu Council and community of developers would like to reaffirm their commitment to provide the same level of support for Kubuntu 12.04 as in previous releases, and to ensure that Canonical's staffing constraints will not affect the level and quality of support that Kubuntu offers to users. Our 11.10 release was also made without a staff member from Canonical and our future ones will be as well. The Kubuntu contributor community is dedicated to the project and will continue to support and release the latest KDE Software along with Kubuntu every six months.

Users can be assured of continuing support, no matter how small or great their needs.Kubuntu has always been primarily built and supported by an active community of volunteers. If you would like to help build the future of Kubuntu, we welcome new recruits with experience or interest in the following areas: KDE Programming (in C++, QML, Python), Packaging, QA Testing, QA Automation, User support, Bug Triage

If you would like to help, please contact us on the kubuntu-devel mailing list or #kubuntu-devel on the FreeNode network.

"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain." -George Orwell, 1984